Amazon Prime raises its price to $99 in the US

Amazon Prime, which includes expedited package shipping of Amazon products, a movie and TV media streaming service and a lending library of Kindle books, will go up in price from $79 to $99 next week.

Although there had been talk of a price rise, the first since the service began nine years ago, Amazon had not announced the amount or the timing of the price increase.

The world's smallest violins sounded as Amazon told its customers on Thursday, "Even as fuel and transportation costs have increased, the price of [Amazon] Prime has remained the same for nine years." It went on to compare statistics on the service then and now to justify the price increase.

The move echoes the price rise for British customers that Amazon announced recently as folded its Lovefilm streaming service that it bought in 2011 into Amazon Prime to create an equivalent to the US service. As a result it increased the price of Amazon Prime in the UK from £49 to £79.